The present invention relates generally to manipulation of media objects or the like, such as photographs, video, audio files, and websites. More particularly, it relates to associating a tag with a media object, where the tag specifies an action to be taken with respect to such media object.
Currently, different applications exist for manipulating different types of objects. For example, a photo application typically is configured to allow one to edit a photograph, e.g., rotate, crop, etc. However, these type of operations are typically customized for the particular application and only include a static set of operations that can be performed on a photo object by a user of such application, which may be extended with software installations.
Other applications also provide passive tags that can be added to objects. For instance, the photo web application identified by the trademark Flickr™ provides a tagging function. In this photo organization experience, tagging is a passive experience for the user because tagging a photo does not actively trigger any action on the photo. After a number of photos have been tagged, a user can then search for photos having a particular tag by invoking a search function and specifying a keyword corresponding to a particular tag. The user can then organize these found photos. However, without the framework of an application site like a photo sharing website to process the photos, the tags themselves are less useful. Furthermore, for the user the benefits of tagging their content for future exploration and organization are not immediately obvious. That is, the user will typically have a delayed association between tagging and the usefulness of tagging.
Accordingly, improved mechanisms for tagging media objects and the like are needed. Additionally, it would be beneficial to provide an active tagging mechanism that automatically triggers a particular action to be performed on tagged media objects and the like.